


in the beginning

by cptsuke



Category: Preacher (TV)
Genre: M/M, Origin Story, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-10
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-08-07 22:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7732027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptsuke/pseuds/cptsuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DeBlanc falls in love on the battlefield.<br/>Its a beginning of sorts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> i dont even know how this happened. i dont even know who the main characters of preacher are any more. theres probably a million mistakes and this is all made up headcanon. idek.

 

Love is harder when it's not just a concept. When it's not just some idea a human might sell his soul over.

DeBlanc once thought he knew what love was. A selfish feeling of satisfaction. Love in actuality was the worst goddamned thing DeBlanc had ever felt, but also somehow the best. It had snuck up on him. Like a tumor he hadn't known he had growing inside until it was too late.

It's not an exaggeration to say DeBlanc fell in love on the battlefield. He hadn't known that was what he was doing at the time, but if he had, would he have tried to stop it?

 

He remembers taking to the fields of the endless war, and being glad for the change of scenery.

 

It wasn't love at first sight – nothing so fleeting – DeBlanc hadn't looked at that short angel – towered over by the warrior Seraphs – and thought _I want to make love to that._ Hadn't even thought of fucking. If he recalls correctly, his first thought upon seeing the path of slaughter the angel walked, the sword in his hand arcing wide to spill more demon blood, DeBlanc believes his first thought might have been _I want to be the one that kills him_.

And he is.

Gets in too close for the long cleaving strokes of that long sword, the angel's eyes had flared in surprise and DeBlanc had slid his sword's point between ribs and into beating heart. A Seraph's sword had taken DeBlanc's head before he'd had much chance to gloat but such was life in war.

The angel kills him three times in a row after that. DeBlanc returns the favor the following day.

The sixth time is more like mutual destruction. Blood dripping down DeBlanc's chin, a Seraph closing in behind him. He hadn't seen the angel yet that day, but then, there he was, eyes narrowing as he too saw DeBlanc. Then he was close, towering over DeBlanc, but the demon hadn't even lifted his sword. Had bared his teeth instead, but not a grimace, not a growl. Something like a grin, maybe something more like a smile, instead.

The angel's hand had stilled, faltering, at the sight of DeBlanc's bared teeth. DeBlanc has grinned as Seraph blade caught him from behind, cleaved him clear in two, the long blade passing through him, through to the angel on the other side.

 

As they lay dying, forgotten already by the still warring, DeBlanc found himself staring into wide wet eyes. The angel merely gutted, not completely separated like DeBlanc, he'll be a long time dying this day. The edges of DeBlanc's sight are shadowing, but he finds reason to hang a little too dearly to life this day. He doesn't think he's ever had the chance to really _look_ at an angel.

“It hurts,” The angel says - almost involuntary - in a small voice.

DeBlanc doesn't doubt that it does, and for the first time feels no satisfaction in the fact. Instead, oddly, he finds himself wanting to help.

Maybe if he'd landed further away. Maybe if he hadn't been within reach of the angel. Maybe all that would follow, would've never occurred.

But he did, and he is, and DeBlanc's hand moves before he thinks, slicing his blade's edge across the angel's throat with the last of his strength.

The angel gasps, blood frothy with air bubbles, eyes dimming but searching DeBlanc's. He's gone soon, but there's this smallest smile left behind on the angel's slack face.

And DeBlanc is lost. He dies knowing if he had any further to fall he would gladly jump because of that soft smile. He's lost and he doesn't even know it.

 

After _that_ , he avoids the angel with the sad eyes and steady slaying hands. Lets himself fall before the other can find him. He doesn't know what to do with the odd feeling in his chest. Doesn't know what the ache means, doesn't _want_ to know what it means. He's a demon, thrice damned before he even gets up in the morning without this additional sin. Because it must be a sin, what ever this is.

And he doesn't want to be sent back to hell.

DeBlanc won't go back there again.

 

 

Their final fall is an actual fall. Another meeting upon the battlefield - no matter how good at avoiding they had become it still happened – an exchange of sword strikes and parries on the verge of being too in sync. Then the bellowing of one of Hell's massive War Beasts and they're hit, thrown across the field. DeBlanc's sword is lost from his grip and then he's falling. But physically falling this time.

They land in one of the impossible crevices that litter the battle grounds. Perhaps designed to break and trap a soldier's body, to keep them from the fight. The walls are too smooth for DeBlanc to scale even if his legs weren't broke, and one look at the angel's curled form with quivering splintered wings, neither of them will be getting out of this hole easy.

“Do you have a name?” The angel asks after a time, the first thing he truly says to DeBlanc. His voice isn't the booming war cry of a Seraph, but quiet, almost squeaking. DeBlanc knows he's fucked when he finds himself thinking it's perfect.

They exchange names like it's the perfectly logical thing to do and DeBlanc takes it as the first real sign that he's not alone in this _thing_.

“Are you dying?” The angel – _Fiore_ – asks after DeBlanc shifts and hisses with pain.

“Not for a long while yet.” He answers truthfully. Maybe blood poisoning will take him, maybe the breaks in his bones are worse than he knows. But not for awhile yet.

“But it hurts?” Fiore presses.

“Oh yes.”

The angel looks skyward, furtive, questioning, like there was answer up there if he just asked it right.

Then a hesitant hand reaches out, DeBlanc doesn't know what he's doing but a Light, something that should burn him to ash, it envelopes him, he's never felt anything like it, never imagined anything like it could exist. It wraps around him, draining all the aches from his soul, dragging out pain and setting broken bones. Its impossible warmth worming its way inside his very self, not even flinching away when it reached the warped soul at his core.

And then it's gone. And DeBlanc is just himself again - whole and unhurt -and Fiore is beside him looking as unsure of himself as an angel possibly could.

“I'm sorry,” He says, staring at anything but DeBlanc.

“You were hurt.” He says though there's bone sticking bloodily out of the feathered mess of his wings.

“So are you.”

“It doesn't work that way.” He says, a small soft smile for DeBlanc's concern.

 

 

They talk for days, trapped at the bottom of that crevice, broken bodies refusing to die, well, DeBlanc does most of the talking, Fiore doesn't add much but his increasingly enjoyable expressions more than make up for his silences.

Angels don't seem much for conversation, they don't seem to emote quite like DeBlanc either. Heaven's so closed off, sits itself so far above humanity and the cesspits of Hell, sometimes he'd wondered if they'd felt anything at all. If they _could_ feel anything. But then he'll catch Fiore just watching him, eyes studying his every move like there was a masterpiece in front of him. He'll touch his soul like a prayer, that warmth all encompassing behind Fiore's shy downcast eyes.

Fiore had come upon battle not a soldier, not a Seraph, just a bod to fill the ranks, a target to draw fire. A Builder on the fields of destruction. But a Maker must must first understand how things can be be unmade. And Fiore understood _that_ completely. He doesn't seem that proud of the fact, but not particularly unproud either.

DeBlanc doesn't know how to tell the angel _he_ was the fucking masterpiece, all he knows is he wants to spend the rest of his days under that gaze.

“It's amazing.” Fiore says when DeBlanc asks what he sees. DeBlanc's never found much beautiful about the corrupt human soul that birthed him, but it seems, Fiore does.

“I know what you are.” He says it with the smallest shrug, not like a denouncement, a simple statement. No fault, no blame assigned or even needed. DeBlanc was born a demon, if there was a sin in it, it wasn't DeBlanc's to bear.

 

 

They don't know it but they create something with their sharing of Soul and Light, and it's that thing that betrays them.

Of course it doesn't mean to. Its not fully conscious then, just an idea of consciousness made from the Light of Heaven and the last dark remnants of humanity in a demon. It's very existence calls to the highest of Demons and Angels, Archangels and Hell's Princes. Those in tune with the spiritual balance of all things, they feel the disruption.

 

 

DeBlanc has had a wealth of shitty days, but he still considers that Day the worst. The day they're found out. The day they're dragged before Archangels ready to pronounce judgement with disgust written all over their faces.

He's not in Hell, not in any place he recognises. He doesn't know if that's a bad thing, or a really bad thing.

He's hurt and been hurt more, but he's from hell, hurt is almost his constant state of being.

“Where's Fiore?”

They hiss angrily, seems they don't much like DeBlanc naming the angel - well DeBlanc don't much like being bound, doesn't much like any of what's happening -  _Where. Was. Fiore?_

He almost wishes he never finds out.

The door to the great hall slams open, a massive Angel with a fistful of feathers stands in the doorway. Then he strides in and the fistful of feathers isn't just feathers, it's a wing, attached to a body that drags behind the Angel. He heaves the body and sends it – _Fiore_ – sliding across the floor to lay bonelessly in the middle of the room.

DeBlanc finds himself pulling at bindings not built to break.

 

He doesn't remember much of the time that follows, tries not to remember anymore than he already does. Just moments, just flashes. The feel of blood running down his wrists. The small noises of _hurt_ that came from Fiore, the only noises he made, no matter how much they try to force him to denounce DeBlanc.

The sudden ache in his knees as he falls to them, pleading, begging, _praying_ , even though he doesn't know how, has only seen those quiet moments when Fiore had prayed with head bowed to a silent absent god.

It's a blasphemy in itself, a demon kneeling in the heaven praying for a traitorous angel. But if it makes them stop hurting Fiore, DeBlanc will spit on every bible, denounce every pit in hell.

Then the thing – _their_ thing – screeches, in sympathy maybe. It's that noise that finally causes all gathered in the room to freeze. Anger subsides for the moment as they ponder the riddle of the unkillable.

 

“What do we do with it?”

 

“What do we do with _them?”_

 

The High Powers name it Genesis. An ironic sort of a name, it may be a beginning, but whether it's of the end or something completely new, no one seems willing to guess. DeBlanc doesn't suspect they'll ever truly know until it's far too late.

They fashion a box for it, a space of infinite dimension, room for Genesis to grow and abide and be hidden.

And never ever _ever_ come out.

They put that box in a room in the furtherest corner of Heaven, far from eyes that might see the abomination that's been made.

 

DeBlanc tries to get a good look at Fiore. He's hurt, but alive, but _fine_ , though he seems lost in his own mind. DeBlanc nudges the angel, tries to get him to look back.  When he finally does speak, DeBlanc wishes he hadn't.

“We're traitors.” There's more emotion in the angel's voice for _that_ than DeBlanc has ever heard him use for anything else.

“Do you wish we hadn't?” He snaps, suddenly angry, prepared fully for Fiore to answer in affirmative and when he does DeBlanc will bid him farewell, take the full blame for this. They can send Fiore to where ever angels go when they're not warring. Maybe he could build again. DeBlanc can care for their mistake alone. But he doesn't get the chance to plan anymore because Fiore leans over to him, he's never initiated frivolous touch before. But now he reaches across, his bindings jangle noisily but he doesn't seem to care that they're under the sharp gaze of archangels, presses his hand against DeBlanc's forearm and whispers in a voice that brooks no argument, _Never._

 

 

The archangels offer Deblanc and Fiore the punishment of an eternity caretaking over Genesis in that room, separate the two to make their decisions.

 

DeBlanc is a dime a dozen demon, replaceable by any of his kin. Fiore, well, angels don't like to consider themselves interchangeable but neither do they seem too keen on letting Fiore run loose.

DeBlanc jumps at the offer, a guaranteed hell free eternity doesn't sound like the worst thing to him, but he wonders how Fiore will answer. DeBlanc's options had been this cushy job - in Heaven – or Hell, in a cage or one of the myriad of entrapments it housed.

Finally Fiore reappears, forced, coerced or chosen it didn't matter, because Fiore was here. 

And then they're alone. Possibly forever.

He worries that the angel will blame him for this, if one of them was to blame, surely he'd been the corrupter purely by virtue of his nature. But there's no anger in Fiore's eyes.

There's nothing but a soft smile like DeBlanc was the only thing he ever wanted to see, that same soft smile that had been stealing pieces of his heart all those times before.

Maybe they're a blasphemy to heaven and hell, but somehow DeBlance thinks at least it's a blasphemy on both sides.


End file.
